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Imagine what it would be like if Star Wars had not been written 30 years ago.

Now picture a young, idealistic George Lucas showing up in Hollywood with the script for Star Wars: A New Hope in 2006. It’s a safe bet the studio executives of today wouldn’t look at the script and see “blockbuster”. Actually, it’s a safe bet they wouldn’t look at it at all. It doesn’t have any toy or comic-book tie-ins, after all. But, assuming George worked hard and was lucky, he might get the thing into the hands of someone who could make it happen. Some Hollywood bigshot. This person would not see the script as the start of a revolution. They probably wouldn’t even green-light it. But if they did, what would happen to the story? How would the movie turn out?

Very few scripts are filmed as written. This is even more true today than it was in the 1970’s. Certainly Star Wars would not make it to the big screen as we know it. Someone who had already written “successfull” movies (that is, movies that made money – it doesn’t matter if they were any good or not) would be brought in to give the script a treatment. Their goal would be to make it more marketable.

Let’s imagine that George is having a tough time making ends meet in 2006 L.A. Because of this, he decides to sell the script and let the studio have their way with it. He knows they will make changes, they will not let him direct his own picture, and if they take time to even listen to his advice they will smile, nod, and ignore it. Still, he hopes he can take the money and use it on this “American Graffiti” idea he’s been working on. George Lucas takes the money, and signs over the rights to the script.

Then they give the script to an expert…

The re-write

So, here we are with this script from Jeff Lucas or whatever his name is. You know, the goofball with the beard? Nice kid, but he has no sense of what people want to see. My personal trainer just finished reading me the script during my Tae-Bo session. Great stuff. Tae-Bo, I mean. The script itself is a little shakey.

Anyway, I’ve got some great ideas that will really bring this thing to life. I think there are some good ideas buried in here, and we need to leverage those.

The first thing that has to go is the title. Star Wars? I only count one war in the movie, and it seems more like a couple of battles. Also, we don’t want to use the word “Star”. Like “Star something because it sounds too much like Star Trek, Starman, or Starship Troopers. Those guys would sue our pants off. No, we need something new. Something punchy.

I’m thinking… wait… how about, “Space Battles”. No? I got it. “Galactic Conflict”. Or wait, how about just “Conflict”. One word titles have power and gravity. Check it out: Doom. Stealth. Domino. Impostor. Red Planet. See? Gravity. Also, what’s with this “episode IV” stuff? I’m all for making this into a trilogy. Or quilogy. Or whatever you call a trilogy of four, but you don’t start at the end.

Now, this “other galaxy” business. That seems silly. Why not just say it’s in the future? Like, the year 5,000 or whatever.

It says here to use John Williams for the score. I don’t know. John’s good, but we go to him for dramas or historical pieces. Mom-has-cancer and Waterloo kinda stuff. We need something more intense for a story like this. We could go with Danny Elfman. No Danny? That’s fine. We can just license some stuff. Something sort of Hardcore. Like The Matrix. You like The Matrix? Good? Alright.

Okay, so let’s go over the script:

Opening Credits

Obviously we’re not going to use this goofy scrolling intro. That will just annoy people. These people are coming to see a movie, not read a book. Plus, when we cut it for TV or video you’ll chop off the sides and it won’t work. You won’t be able to read it. Let’s just have someone, the Kenobi character I guess, read this stuff in voice-over. We’ll cut it down. Get rid of the stuff in ALL CAPS. Looks like chatroom text for crying out loud.

The rebels have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, a weapon with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Their hope now rests on Princess Leia, who must bring the plans back, and turn the tide of… the conflict.

Then when he reads “conflict” we launch into opening credits. Like names blowing up in space and stuff.

Scene 1: Space Battle

I like this. We open up with lasers and ships exploding.

These two robots. I love these guys. Funny. I think we’ll get John Cleese for the tall one. The short one with the beeps? That doesn’t work. He needs like a chirpy voice that says just a couple of phrases. Like catchphrases. Like, “Outta my way junkpile!” “Move it or lose it rust-brain!” Stuff like that. I bet Robin Williams will do it. Think of the marketing tie-ins. Happy Meals and stuff.

Now, the princess. She zaps one guy and they knock her out? What kind of rebel is she? My kids are more rebellious than that. We’ll make her sexy but tough. The way I see it, she has lots of attitude, doesn’t play by the rules, doesn’t respect autority, nobody can tame her, etc. I’m thinking Charlize Theron for the part. Instead of this big white bedsheet costume she’ll have tight leather uniform, see? She’s a bad girl. And she’ll fight these stormtroopers with karate kicks and guns. I’m thinking big, elaboate fight scene where she kills like a dozen of these guys before they capture her.

Anyway, I don’t know about this guy. I think the full mask is too much. Kinda makes him seem more like a horror movie villian. Like Jason or the guy from Scream. Nobody with any star power is going to want to spend the film behind the mask. We’ll lose the mask and get Alan Rickman or Gary Oldman for the Vader part. It’ll be awesome.

Then when Vader comes aboard to talk to the princess she needs to be be defiant. Spit in his face. Show how fearless she is. Better than boring everyone with stuff about the senate or whatever. Then, he hits her! This will establish right away that he’s a bad guy in the minds of the audience.

Scene 2: Sand Dune Planet

First off, we are not calling this planet Tattooine. Sounds ridiculous. No, call it Dryadia or Aridon or Dune-worldia or something.

I like this wacky dialog these robots have. I think the little one should have a nasty streak, but only with the yellow one, and only when nobody else is around. Like a running joke. He turns all mean when nobody’s looking. For this scene when they argue about which way to go, I think we need a little more visual comedy here. Something for the kids. Like the yellow guy falls down and says he can’t get up or something.

Scene 3: Buying the droids

The Luke character isn’t strong enough. He’s our leading man. I got it! Paul Walker. He was great in the Fast and the Furious, and I think that has a lot in common with our Luke character. He’s a rebel and a bad boy. Confident. Cocky. Sexy. Yeah. Maybe he’ll even bring some females in to see the movie.

Scene 3: Chasing R2D2

Okay, they chase this little droid out into the wasteland. Tense. Then we introduce Kenobi, but all he does is scare the robbers away by making monster sounds? This guy is supposed to be a general! I think Kenobi would run in and carve these guys up with his lasersword.

This sounds like a good part for Walter Matthau. Dead? I didn’t know. Well, who else is old? Nevermind. We’ll come up with someone later.

Scene 4: Kenobi’s house

Looks good. We could speed this up a bit by leaving out all the stuff about Luke’s father. It’s not that interesting, and it doesn’t really move the plot forward.

Scene 5: Death Star

I like the scene, except where Dark Vader chokes the guy from across the room, and then lets him go. I think it will confuse people. They will think this guy is choking on a peanut or something. Just have Dark Vader stab him with the laser saber. Show what a badass he is.

I like this scene where all these evil, sort of facist guys, are all plotting the war and stuff. I think it would really amuse people if we worked in some Bush refrences. The facist thing makes me think of him. I say we re-name this Tarkin fellow to Chaney. Like Cheney, get it? It’s clever. People love clever.

Scene 6: Return Home

I think it would be more damatic if Luke arrives just as his family is getting killed. So we get to see them die. More dramatic. Also, I think the family needs a pet. Some cute animal, like a space-dog or whatever. Maybe he leaves thinking the dog is dead and finds out it’s still alive at the end. Symbol of hope and all. Put the fuzzy little guy in the trailer and bring in some kids to see the movie.

Anyway, he shows up and the troopers see him, and we could have a great chase scene where they go after him in his hovercar. Some shooting. Kind of show that even though he’s a farmboy he can handle himself.

Scene 7: Cantina

This is a great scene. They meet Han Solo at the bar. Good character. I like him. A read bad boy. I’m thinking Johnny Knoxville. I’m also thinking we get rid of this wookie thing. The toy would scare children. This Solo guy seems like the loner type to me anyway.

The place needs some dancing girls. Like, some blue-skinned women in thongs dancing around. Give it all that “outer space” feel. Also, I’m going to assume that the notes on the music are a joke. It’s the year 5,000 and it’s going to sound like Jazz music? Gotta be a joke. This would be a good spot to drop in some Rod Zombie or Lint Biscut or whatever the kids are listening to. You know, hardcore. Give the place a deadly, gritty feel.

Then, when the bounty hunter comes in, I think we need a brawl. I mean, here we are, in a bar and these two guys are enemies. The audience is going to expect a brawl. I say, like six bounty hunters come in, and Solo takes them all on. Alone. Solo. I love it. They should be really big black guys. Well, not black guys, or it would be racist. And I hate racists. So, we get a bunch of big black guys and color them green or something.

Although, these guys are like the mob. Maybe they should be Itialians? We could have James Gandolfini play Jabba. I don’t know. We’ll talk about this one later. Call me.

Scene 7: Spaceport

What is this “load your weapons” stuff? What kind of stormtroopers walk around with unloaded weapons? How about, “Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Shoot to kill.” Much better.

Scene 8: Death Star

I like when they bring Leia in and trick her into reveling the location of the rebel base, and then blow up her planet anyway. But we need more. We should have some shots of the people on the planet. Show how inhabited it is. I’m worried the audience will have trouble grasping just how bad it is to blow up a whole planet. It’s not like just destroying a city or a building.

Scene 9: Spaceship

I don’t understand this “force” stuff. I’m thinking it will confuse the viewers. Let’s just call them psychics. Or Psy-warriors. People understand psychics.

Scene 10: Death Star

I love this. They get captured, and decide to rescue the princess. The whole thing with the tractor beam was kind of hard to understand, though.

Scene 11: Prison

This is lame. Princess Leia is just sitting around, waiting to be rescued? I mean, a helpless princess? Is this a fairy tale? Trust me, nobody will want to see this as written. Here is how it needs to go: Luke and Solo break in, start a fight, and find she’s already escaped and fighting her way out! In fact, I think it would be really ironic if they got pinned down and she rescued them. Like, the troopers surround them, all hope is lost, and then BOOM! Princess Leia blasts open a nearby door, runs across the room, and drop-kicks the commander. Maybe knock his head right through a console, which opens the door so they can escape. Now, there is an action scene for you!

Scene 13: Trash Compactor

Great scene. Gives the guys a chance to prove themselves after being rescued by Princess Leia, and return the favor. Except: I don’t know about the underwater monster. Wouldn’t it be more scary if we got to see it?

Scene 13: Kenobi vs. Vader

I enjoyed this up until the part where I read General Kenobi LETS himself be killed? What? What kind a general is this, anyway? Is he a pacifist? And this stuff about the force. It’s a superpower but they act like its religion. This is making everything too complicated.

The whole scene where Kenobi just dies… it lacks closure. Vader should stab Kenobi and walk away. Vader assumes he’s dead, BUT! He’s just barely alive. (Am I reading this right? Ben is supposed to vanish? Lame. ) Then Luke can find him just as he’s dying, and Kenobi can tell Luke to lead the resistance to victory. Then he dies.

Scene 12: Escape from the Death Star

Space battle. Excitment. Great stuff. I suggest: Have princess offer to fly the ship while the boys use the guns. Solo objects, since he doesn’t let anyone fly his ship. But she does, and she’s even better than he is! She’s a marksman and a pilot and a kung-fu master and a princess and looks like a supermodel. Gives young girls someone to look up to. Make them believe in themselves.

Scene 13: The long, boring breifing and the final battle

This is too complicated.

The Princess stays behinds while everyone else goes off to fight? This Lucas guy must be a misogynist or something. Since she stays behind, she should change into some sort of low-cut admiral uniform and take over as the commander at the rebel base.

It would be more exciting if they don’t know how to beat the Death Star, but as a last desperate measure, they send their ships anyway. Then – just as the rebels are defeated to the point where only Luke and Solo are left – the little R2D2 guy comes in and tells Leia about the weak spot. He’s known it all along, but nobody would listen! Catchphrase!

Then Leia tells Luke, he blows up the Death Star, and the good guys win.

Scene 14: The award ceremony

This scene has to go. All these soldiers lined up like a big army? Our heroes are too cool for that kind of stuff. What are we saying with all these soldiers? That we replaced one jackbooted army with another?

They should have a big party. Work in the hit single. Luke and Leia finally loosen up and kiss.

This is gonna be huge. Bigger than The Fantastic Four.

Geeks like me would go to this movie. We’d watch it, and just be grateful Hollywood threw us a bone this year.

I really like the parodic comedy of the … treatment..
more than funny and possibly a little bit true for far too much of the major movies we are thought to enjoy and refinance by paying the cinema-tickets ;)

BUT… i don’t think that there would really be problems THIS big. The Original SW hasn’t been planned as big blockbuster itself and the budget was rather limited (what finally earned Lucas the golden nose by him securing a budget raise through agreeing in lowering his own income for the granting of the merchandising rights), and as an “independent” storywriter his chances wouldn’t be so bad, remember The Matrix, remember Underworld?

Followed the link back from the post about the unused Aragon-Sauron fight in LoTR. I only got as far as Scene 3 in this before my brain gave up and hung itself because, as you said in the latter post, this is WAY TOO ACCURATE. ;_;

It could quite plausibly end up a lot worse than this, actually. At the moment, all the scenes and the essential plotline are still there. It wouldn’t be particularly strange nowadays for Hollywood to be handed Star Wars and end up with The Chronicles of Ridley. Think about it.

The shots they use are energy bolts, right? Even if you want to call them lasers, they still require lots of energy.

So perhaps the energy is stored in the gun when not “loaded” in a closed system section just below the barrell, in the grip for example, intended to keep the guns from draining the energy, it holds it in.

To load the gun, you turn off the “safety”, and the bolts are loaded into the barrel, ready to fire, but also constantly losing energy as they are exposed to the atmosphere, which is significantly cooler, and thus is constantly turning the energy bolt into more and more of a dud bullet.

So if I was the “rewriter”, I’d say they’d need a CGI scene explaining that, showing the energy in the grip flow up into the barrel with the flick of a switch.

Funny stuff! Of course, I’m betting that the “expert” would have suggested a re-write to make the bounty hunter shoot first in the cantina scene. We wouldn’t want people to think our good guy is a bad guy, would we?

Okay, all I want from the original trilogy is one scene… if George Lucas can rape my childhood, why can’t I?
Han Solo walks into the first bar he sees after being frozen in carbonite just in time to see a decomissioned war droid lose at holochess and rip off its opponents arms.
Pause in shock. “Well, I’ll be damned…” (Yeah, I know it’s stupid as hell, but I think it’s a great kind of stupid.)
And to hell with Ewoks, the biggest red flag that announced Hollywood was seeping in like an gangreious infection. They should have stayed with Wookies, explored the newfound cultural gap between them and Chewbacca, and seriously destroyed a more heavily defended sheild generator. Every time I play a Star Wars RPG, any girl present wants to be a damn Ewok… AAAAAAUUUGHHH!!!

So, I came here from the Aragorn-Sauron post also. And all I can say is I got to scene 7 or so before the I was getting visibly angry at how bad this script is, and yet how likely it is that this could have happened. HONESTLY. Oh well. Thank god it is the way it is.

But, this parody script did do something positive for me: it helped me remember how the A New Hope is pure. F**king. Gold. I was able to think “man, if you changed it, you’d be messing with perfection.” so thanks for posting this so I could remember that. also, this is my first comment on here, and you have a really awesome website. so thanks for all the random crap that gets on here and keep up the good work

Like many others have already said, I would probably be very inclined to go see this new movie “Conflict” if just not to see another girl kick some butt!!! Need more of them. I was actually getting into the rewrite of the story too… is that bad?

The “load your weapons” line actually does kinda make sense, though not necessarily for an “evil” empire. I mean, cops go around with loaded guns, but without chambering the first round so the gun won’t fire. I see the “load your weapons” as something like chambering that first round.

Now, if they’d made Star Wars in anime, X-Wings and TIE fighters would all morph into robot battle warriors, and the Death Star would morph into something resembling Unicron. And they’d all have lightsabers (and the Death Star/Unicron lightsaber would be big enough to slice a planet in half – well, how else is it gonna kill a whole world?)

“Load your weapons” – depends on doctrine of Stormtroopers in policing worlds, my guess is they’d have their guns set on safety and unchambered to prevent accidents (after all good ole’ Palpatine would hate to lose say loyal governor when a Stormtrooper numbnut on patrol accidentally unloads into his hover limousine) and would “load” them in case there’s trouble ahead (in this case, storming a landing platform of a known rogue pilot who just sacked a bounty hunter in the public CATCHING HIM OFF GUARD AND SHOOTING FIRST!)…

Other than that, I think Shamus underestimated the destructive powers of Hollywood, just take a look at that U-boat movie ;)

The parody is really well done and catches the spirit of 21st century Hollywood really good, but wouldn’t worry about a modern Star Wars because, when it appeared, in the ’70, it dramatically changed the face of blockbusters and sci-fi in cinematography. Since then, it influenced countless movies and created a whole legacy. Sci-fi would definetly be different today if it wasn’t for Star Wars.

Yeah, an experienced bounty hunter shoots at a guy sitting still at a range of 2 feet and misses. Pull the other one. More like General Solo of the New Republic had the documentary edited to cover up his shooting a man in cold blood – if you view the scene in slow motion he actually dodges the shot, and the crappy CG where it was edited is really obvious.

Er, FlameKiller you do know that originally Han did shoot first don’t you? It was only Lucas’s meddling for the special editions that sees Greedo shoot first instead and that’s what Greywolf was referencing.

This is cute, and quite representative of modern Hollywood. The problem is, Star Wars, to a surprisingly large degree, created modern Hollywood: Toy tie-ins, merchandising, Huge summer blockbuster and more would not exist the way it is today if it wasn’t for Star Wars.

In fact its hard to say what Hollywood would have been like in 2006 if Star Wars hadn’t come along because the impact is so huge. That would be an interesting article on its own.

As Darth and Droids posits, we might not have even had the revival of Star Trek. The series could still just be the TOS TV Show and possibly some novels.

We also might not have gotten Superman: The Motion Picture, which leaves the possibility of the superhero revolution in cinema in the 21st century in doubt (of course, as of the writing of this article, it probably felt like that was starting to peter out because Iron Man was still two and a half years away.)

I think the rewrite you mentioned WOULD be okay for geeks, but it would alienate everyone else. When I saw Star Wars as a kid, I was geeked out. I loved the Force references and the funny robots.

I have nothing about your rewrite, but it sort of shows how far rock bottom the movie industry has come and why the only movies I will ever watch for the rest of my life are the last two Harry Potter movies. Harry Potter works because, even though they (censored) out a lot of what made the books good, they also kept what would draw in a newbie. Still, I shudder to think about what will be done with Deathly Hallows, since I know parents who take their kids to watch these movies.

The thing is, I’m pretty sure that the Star Wars that we’re all familiar with actually WAS a rewrite. Granted, they at least let the original author iterate on it, but (at least according to Wikipedia ) he’d been going through major overhauls to make a more Hollywood appropriate movie since 1971.

Also, the original release was just as ‘Star Wars’. They didn’t add Episode IV until they re-released it in 1981, but I realize that that’s incidental to the main gist of your post.

Star Wars originally came out in 1972, and completely redefined not just movie-making, but art as a whole. It was derided at first, but, much like the Beatles the decade before, it turned out have been so sublime, so outside the box, that critics had simply failed to grasp it, and written it off as a flop. A few decades later, it was pretty much the watermark of all entertainment purporting to be intelligent, though-provoking and deep. Even within his life span, George Lucas attained a reputation to eclipse even Homer and Shakespeare, and he did so on a budget amounting to a comb and two pieces of string. In fact, the popular 80’s television series MacGuyver, which was an existentialist action-drama focusing on the acquisition and use of practical knowledge as an extension of the self, was modeled on Lucas’ experiences filming Star Wars. After the film’s release, the average critical rating of all other movies dropped two points due to the inevitable comparison, and though they slowly climbed back up to the pre-Star Wars levels, that was not due to any drop in critical standards. In fact, no course on any level of education can possibly avoid some level of analysis or discussion of Star Wars, since it seems to encompass the entirety of human existence, and to do so more fully and clearly than any other work has even managed a single trait of these. In most cases, a working understanding of Star Wars is, in fact, required in ordered to be considered to have even a rudimentary knowledge of any topic outside of hard science. It was, hands down, the best movie ever made.

If this was that movie, where would we be? Thanks to The Lord of the Rings, we have Elves, and Dwarves, and Orcs, and everything else that brings the medieval fantasy world to life. Without that movie trilogy, medieval fantasy would be horribly, horribly different. If this was Star Wars, then all would be lost. The force would never exist, and every nerd in the word probably attempted to move something like a TV remote or a soda once in their life. Not only that, but if that was R2D2, then we wouldn’t have the “What did he say?” kind of reactions that would be followed up by C3P0 saying something back obviously telling us that R2D2 said something rude. That is good humor. And if there is one thing I hate that every, stinkin, dirty, media designer does, it’s that he makes all of the woman wear shirt cut everything. Where would we be today if we saw well oiled guys wearing speedos. Girls feel uncomfortable by this. I mean, who wouldn’t? I want the woman to seem real, like the world is a real place with it’s good and bad areas. No one could play Han Solo better than Harrison Ford. NO ONE. And what would this world be without Star Wars? No Star Wars jokes, no lightsaber nonsense, no Star Wars role-playing game, and no space nerds. I bet that there would be half if not less space related nerd conventions.

A life without Star Wars is like a life without Christmas. Star Wars is a place where all age groups young and old can enjoy a small piece of life.

Gary Oldman as Dark Vader…. This re-write is an abomination of cinema, but for some reason, this is standing out as the worst change for me. James Earl Jones is like… a force. His voice alone is powerful and intimidating. Gary Oldman is a cartoonish oaf in comparison. Darth Vader as cartoonish oaf… euag.

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, I never saw anything special in it. It came out twelve years before I was born and my parents werent geeks, so it wasnt pushed for me to like the movies. But seeing you describe it as it could have been, a watered down and bland summer action flick… I think I appreciate it all the more now.

forty years ago, I was a nerd and the one thing I have noticed is that if there is a void, something will fill it. This version would open and close in a week and never be noticed any more than the average film. The budget alone would make it less popular than a documentary or maybe a comedy. When was the last comedy that was a real block buster?

To fill the gap, we would have something. Our loss, but our gain for Star Wars. The real story is good, not great or classic. The acting is much the same except for a few characters, but every primary character is one of those few.

It is the magic of happenstance and the bringing together of a whole weave of low budget, actual creativity to get around it, the fortune that nobody believed he could do it…so he had a free hand and MANY actors came into their peak ability for the first show. As I said, it was the magic. We don’t see it often and it helped, but did not make the other episodes better. Just chance.

Re-reading this years later, I find it ironic that this script-remake actually sounds more 70’s and 80’s than Star Wars IV actually was.

In my opinion Star Wars did so well because it didn’t look/feel like it5 was the 70’s or 80’s. Some of the special effects look dated (trash compactor styrofoam metal junk for example, but I guess a in-universe explanation was later added for that).

But otherwise the hair styles, the clothes, buildings, ships, everything does not really match the time period the movie was made in.

Shamus however has a great point in that if made in more modern “hollywood” years the movie would be more current and have references to try and connect with todays people.

One can say what one want about Lucas, but when he made Star Wars he made a movie, not a x weeks long running cinema block buster.
The latter movies built on the momentum of the first but still retained the feel of the first. The 2nd trilogy while still retaining some of the feel it does move further away from the original.

We’ll see what the new Star Wars VII will do, I’m hoping it sticks closer to the original trilogy than the prequel trilogy.

The part “Have princess offer to fly the ship while the boys use the guns. Solo objects, since he doesn’t let anyone fly his ship. But she does, and she’s even better than he is! She’s a marksman and a pilot and a kung-fu master and a princess and looks like a supermodel.” is fantastically, fantastically prescient.

Perfectly predicts the problems people would have with Rey in TFA. I know it’s an artifact of Sequel Escalation that everyone has to be more powerful than those who came before – ditto Kylo being able to freeze blaster bolts mid-air and forcibly extract information from peoples’ minds – but it’s still annoying.

Oh my… somebody must have read your website before they filmed part VII of the series…. Or were you involved as a consultant in anyway? Everyting is spot on, from the change in costume for the female protagonist to killing the old geezer with a light saber (or whatever it was that Ben used).

I dunno, your cast seems awfully white and male. Sure you have the princess, but what is she? A token. Let’s diversify things and cast Judy Dench as this Obi Wan guy. Maybe she and Dark Vader were former lovers, and that’s why their fight is so personal. Still leaves things too white though. Maybe Halle Berry for the princess? And forget Johnny Knoxville, more diversity. How about Antonio Bandaras for the rogue guy helping them? If he’s not available, what about Ricky Martin? The girls will flock to see either of these guys and best of all diversity. Can Ricky Martin act? Who cares, this is Hollywood, what does acting have to do with a movie?

Others have said this sounds a lot like TFA. Although TFA is not nearly as hacky as this, with your fictional producer not caring about the source material, or caring about emotional weight to anything. Similarities including:

1. The girl being a badass who can fight.
2. Kylo has a mask, but does take it off.
3. BB8 is kind of nasty to Fin, who is the closest person to the C3P0 comedy relief stand in.
4. Kylo murders the old defenseless man in the village the start. BAD GUY!
5. Kylo cuts up a terminal with his light saber in anger. I think this is good characterization though as he’s a nerd kid who can’t control his temper.
6. Closest thing to return home is the useless Rathtar action sequence in the middle. Also Solo does say “we’re home” in it.
7. When they use the new-new Death Star, they show people on the planet being killed in the explosion.
8. Rey broke out on her own and didn’t need to be rescued.
9. Built much more emotion into the Han Solo death scene.
10. Solo wants to hire Rey onto his crew because shes a good pilot and knows the Falcon.

Also James Gandolfini, Paul Walker, Alan Rickman, AND Robin Williams are all dead now. Thanks Shamus.